A Can't-Lose VC Opportunity:
Getting Poor Kids Into College

Updated Dec. 5, 2002 12:01 a.m. ET

VCs on a Quest

With few safe bets anymore, some Silicon Valley venture capitalists are putting their money behind what they believe will prove a can't-lose proposition: backing a program that helps land gifted but low-income high-school students in the best universities.

The Quest Scholars program has attained almost a perfect record in getting these high-school graduates enrolled in places such as Stanford and Harvard, and keeping them there, since starting up in 1994 in Palo Alto, Calif. But the program has expanded its...